It has been something of a rocky ride for Gay Talese‘s book “The Voyeur’s Motel.” Purported to tell the true story of Gerald Roos, who ran the titular motel and for decades spied on his guests having sex without being caught, the truth of the story has been difficult to discern. Roos, who confessed his activities to Talese, has turned out to be an unreliable narrator, with some facts regarding his tale coming into question, but nonetheless, the author has stood by the overall veracity of his book. Indeed, the story — true or not — was so good that it landed Sam Mendes to direct an adaptation that he would produce alongside Steven Spielberg, but another surprising twist has brought the movie to a halt.
Deadline reports that DreamWorks has killed “The Voyeur’s Motel,” after the filmmakers learned that a documentary about the story by filmmakers Myles Kane and Josh Koury has quietly been in production without their knowledge.
“Nobody told us about [the documentary],” Mendes told the trade. “Nobody told DreamWorks, nobody told me. It was going on all that time; they had been making the documentary for at least a year before the publication of the book, which is one of the reasons it’s such a strong piece of work. But nobody ever told us, simple as that, which clearly is frustrating. It’s difficult to talk about it without giving away what is so wonderful about the documentary, but it has so many things that are wonderful and can only be achieved by a documentary. The interviews ask the question; who is the voyeur? Is it Gerald Foos, who bought the motel with the leering rooms, or is it Gay Talese, who, in a way, is equally walking a moral knife edge by writing about it? Who is the person peddling the fantasy? Is it someone who’s doing it and telling only one person, or is it someone who makes that into a published work that is read by and discussed by many thousands?”
So, sounds like a killer documentary is on the way, but it’s one whose depth will render a feature film adaptation a bit moot. And while Mendes is disappointed about this turn of events, he’s at least able to look on the bright side.
“What has come out of it is a very good relationship with an extremely talented and promising young writer [Krysty Wilson-Cairns] and that has been a silver lining for me and DreamWorks. She did a great job, which makes it more frustrating from my point of view because we feel, to a degree, that we wasted our time. That does not feel great, but it’s what happened. It’s a very, very unusual situation I don’t think any of us anticipated,” the director added.
So, scratch this project off Mendes’ list, but he has plenty on his plate to turn to including Disney‘s “James And The Giant Peach” and the adaptation of Jess Walter‘s bestseller, “Beautiful Ruins.“